


A Sticky Situation

by CatrinaSL



Series: Darcyland April Fool's Crack Challenge 2018 [5]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Crack, Darcyland April Fool's Crack Challenge 2018, F/M, Fluff and Crack, SHIP DARCY LEWIS WITH ALL THE THINGS, Three Things, Undressing, glue, stuck together
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-05
Updated: 2018-04-05
Packaged: 2019-04-18 15:08:13
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,150
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14215791
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CatrinaSL/pseuds/CatrinaSL
Summary: Bruce and Darcy accidentally get glued together, and in the process of getting un-glued, a few truths come to light.





	A Sticky Situation

**Author's Note:**

> Welcome to the [Darcyland April Fool’s Crack Challenge](http://dresupi.tumblr.com/post/169715558929/2nd-annual-darcyland-crack-challenge-in-honor)! Today's prompt is A Literally “Sticky” Situation!
> 
> Thank you to thestanceyg for her beta skills!

Jane shook her head. "I think we did our work too well," she said. "You're going to have to lose the clothes."

Darcy turned pink. "Right here?" she asked. "In the middle of the lab?"

Bruce cleared his throat. "Surely not. I mean, there's no reason we shouldn't be somewhere more private."

"Of course," Jane agreed. " I think Darcy's place is closest; I'll have Thor grab something out of your closet for you, Bruce."

Darcy nodded and tilted her head toward the exit. "To the elevator, then?"

Bruce nodded.

It was a quiet and awkward ride.

There wasn't anything else it could be, really. Darcy had shown up late that morning, after spending longer than usual fixing her hair into a fancy updo. It was necessary, she had told Jane, so that everyone could appreciate her new dress. 

Her dress  _ did _ get appreciated; everyone in the lab complimented her on it, even Bruce. 

He was glad that he had an excuse to compliment her for once; Darcy was one of his favorite people, but he was too practical to ever think that something romantic might happen between them. She had blushed and smiled at his compliment, which made his heart flutter. 

But unfortunately, as she turned to walk away, tragedy struck. He was reaching for something on a shelf behind her, and she stepped backward into his arm, causing the the heavy duty glue they had been working with that morning to stick his entire arm to her shoulders.

It would have been funny if Bruce hadn't been convinced Darcy would be able to feel how quickly his heart was beating just from standing close to her, his arm around her as though they were a couple.

"I have to say," Bruce began, as the elevator came to a stop on Darcy's floor. "I'm surprised there weren't more puns about how this is literally a sticky situation."

Darcy let out a mirthless laugh. "Right, yeah. I guess everyone is taking it pretty seriously for once."

"Well, it could have been serious," Bruce said. "I'm really sorry... I wasn't thinking when I... I mean, it  _ was _ just an accident that I put my arm around you. But the glue could have hurt you; I'm glad none of it got on your skin."

Darcy laughed again, a more genuine sound. "It's okay, I, uh, shouldn't have jumped when you were reaching around me."

"No, it's not your fault," Bruce said.

Darcy smiled, then led the way down the hall to where Thor was waiting for them at her door.

"Jane said you would need this," he told them, holding out a purple t-shirt. "And this." It was a plastic garbage bag. "For your clothes. Jane wants to study the effects of the substance on fabric. Test different kinds of solvents, that kind of thing."

"That makes sense," Bruce said.

"My new dress," Darcy bemoaned.

"I'm sorry, Darcy," Bruce said again.

"Perhaps Bruce should take you out and buy you another dress," Thor suggested with a small smile.

Darcy started to shake her head, but Bruce said, "Of course; it's the least I could do."

"I don't think—" she began.

"You ought to take her out to dinner as well, to make up for the inconvenience," Thor added.

"Yes, that's a good idea," Bruce agreed. Surely an apology dinner between two friends wouldn't be too much to pay her back for ruining her morning and her dress.

Darcy glared at Thor as she snatched the bag and shirt from him.

The thunder god suppressed a smile and opened the door for them. He looked like a proud brother sending his sister off to the prom as Darcy and Bruce stepped through the doorway.

"Sorry about him," Darcy said, tossing the shirt and the bag onto her couch.

"No, he's right," Bruce argued. "I should make this up to you somehow."

"It was my fault too," Darcy told him. "Don't worry about it."

"But I should—"

"Bruce," Darcy huffed, cutting him off. "We're about to be mostly naked in front of each other; can we put off the politeness competition until later?"

He cleared his throat, trying not to blush at the idea. "Sure. Uh, sorry."

Darcy sighed, but laughed. "Let's just do this."

"Right."

Bruce offered her the sleeve of his lab coat, and Darcy tugged on it until Bruce was able to shrug it off. 

"I should just be able to..." Bruce began, twisting away from Darcy and trying to wiggle out of the thick rubber work glove that was stuck to her shoulder. "...Slip out of the—oh."

"'Oh,' what?" Darcy wanted to know.

"Oh, I... was wondering why Jane sent Thor to get me a shirt; it looks like I  _ did _ roll up the sleeve of the lab coat too high. My shirt is stuck."

Darcy nodded; she didn't seem terribly surprised.

But she did clear her throat before asking quietly: "Do you want help with your buttons?"

"You don't have to do tha—" Bruce started to say, but was silenced by Darcy's fingers on the top button of his shirt. "I can... get it," he said, and worked the second one clumsily with his one free hand.

"It's fine," Darcy told him, brushing his fingers away. Her face was red as she looked up at his. "I'm going to need help getting out of my dress without getting glue in my hair, so..."

Bruce cleared his throat and searched for something to talk about. Anything so that he wasn't focusing on the way her hands felt against his chest. "Can I... ask you something?"

Darcy pressed her lips together but nodded, moving on to his fourth button.

"Today when you came into the lab, you sort of... you joked around with the other guys. But then when you came over to me, you... didn't. I've kind of noticed that you don't act the same around me as you do around everybody else and I was wondering if I did something, or...?"

"No, it's—" Darcy began, attacking his fifth button with a frown. "I mean... maybe I do. But it's not because I don't  _ like _ you, Bruce. It's… because I..."

She finished with his buttons and pushed the shirt off his shoulder, sliding her hand down his arm and pulling the cuff of the shirt off his wrist.

Bruce couldn't suppress a shiver; it had been a long time since another human being had undressed him. But this wasn't anything other than two colleagues trying to clean up after a science accident, so he turned the shiver into a shimmy, twisting his other hand to coax it out of the glove.

"There," he said, as he freed himself from both the shirt and the lab coat. "What were you about to say?"

He turned to Darcy and found her eyes on his chest. Then she looked up into his eyes, and—

"Sorry, let me just..." Bruce dove for the shirt Darcy had tossed on the couch.

The look in Darcy's eyes had not been professional.

"That's better," he said, pulling the shirt on. "How should we...?"

Darcy shook her head. "Right. Uh, maybe get the bag and I'll stand over it? Just in case; I don't want to be cutting glue out of the carpet."

Bruce obligingly moved the bag to the floor, shaking it open and kneeling as he spread it over the carpet so that Darcy could step carefully inside.

When he glanced up at her, she was covering her face with her hands. 

"Are you okay?"

"Yeah, fine, I'm just…” She let out a sigh, then suddenly blurted, “I've had a crush on you for months. The only reason I dressed up today or did my hair or even bought this dress was so that maybe you'd smile at me like you were earlier, and then the glue thing happened, and I just took off  _ your shirt _ , and now you're kneeling at my feet, and I've  _ had dreams _ about this..." Her words trailed off into a moan and her hands returned to her face, which was covered in an embarrassed blush.

Bruce opened his mouth to reply, but no sound came out.

"I'm sorry, Bruce," Darcy murmured. "You should probably get Jane to help me get out of this; I'll just wait here for her and then go die."

Bruce stood slowly and put his hands over Darcy's, coaxing them away from her face. 

"I like you, too," he said. "I have for...ever. So..." He let out a sigh, exhaling some of his nervousness. "If you want me to get Jane to help you with this, I can, but I really would like to take you out to dinner sometime. And not just so I can repay you for the dress."

"Are you serious?" Darcy asked, her eyes searching his for the truth.

Bruce smiled. "Yeah."

"Okay," Darcy said softly.

"So what should we do now?"

"Kiss?" Darcy suggested.

Bruce laughed. "Maybe glue first, then kissing?"

"Right," Darcy agreed. "Priorities."

"I mean... I'd be lying if I said kissing wasn't pretty high on the priority list," Bruce confessed.

"Then let's get to it," Darcy told him.

"Where do you want me?"

Darcy grinned and he was sure she was going to say something non-glue related, but she licked her lips and said, "Later," before tugging the bodice of her dress. 

"Just keep an eye on the glue and make sure it doesn't get in my hair. There's a zipper in the back, but that's sort of under the glue zone. I think I'll be able to wiggle out most of the way myself, but I may need help right at the end."

"Of course, however I can help," Bruce agreed. 

He tried his best to keep his eyes on the back of her neck and not on her legs as she slowly tugged the dress higher and higher, causing the hem to rise with it.

"Bruce?" Darcy asked, just as Bruce was failing to ignore that she was wearing thigh high stockings.

"Yeah?"

"Can you lift the whole works over my head now?"

"Oh—sure, I can try."

Darcy tilted her chin forward, and Bruce carefully lifted the dress, keeping his eyes firmly fixed on the back of her neck to make sure no glue got on her skin. As soon as her head was free, she bent her knees and extracted her arms, leaving him standing there holding the bundle of their clothes.

"Bag it," Darcy commanded, and before Bruce could do much more than lower his arms a little, Darcy was holding up the bag while she shoved his shirt and the lab coat inside.

"Careful," he warned.

Darcy nodded and lifted the bag while Bruce maneuvered the rest of the clothes into it.

"So... what do we do now?" Bruce asked as Darcy tied a knot in the top of the bag.

"Well," Darcy replied. "First we get rid of  _ this _ ."

Bruce looked the other direction while Darcy headed for her door. His eyes definitely didn't follow the sway of her hips when she walked, nor did he let his gaze linger on the way her curves looked as she bent over to toss the bag outside her door.

"Nice view?" Darcy asked when she turned around and spotted him  _ not _ watching her.

"Very," Bruce said with a smile. He didn't even make an effort to look away as she sauntered back toward him.

She wound her arms around his neck. "I believe I was promised kissing?"

"We'll get to it," Bruce promised. "I'm kind of overwhelmed."

"I'm a lot to handle," Darcy told him with a grin.

"Well, that," Bruce agreed, "And you were covering your face with your hands five minutes ago, but now you don't seem to mind if I see all of you."

"That's because I didn't know if you  _ wanted _ to see all of me five minutes ago," Darcy told him. "Now I know you do. Communication works wonders."

"So does that glue," Bruce said.

"True," Darcy agreed. "I mean, it wasn't how I would have chosen for things to happen, but it did the trick. I  _ did _ get to undress you."

"You might get to again if you play your cards right," he replied, his lips curving into a smile.

"I'd better," Darcy said, going up on her tiptoes to get closer to that smile. "You're definitely overdressed at the moment."

Kissing Darcy wasn't something Bruce had expected to be doing that day, much less a Darcy clad only in her underwear, but there they were.

"I really am sorry about ruining your dress," Bruce murmured as Darcy tugged him toward what he assumed was her bedroom.

"Give me a few minutes and you can ruin my sheets, too," Darcy hummed.

Bruce let out a surprised laugh. "Now,  _ that _ sounds like a sticky situation."

And it was.

**Author's Note:**

> [Reblog on tumblr](http://catrinasl.tumblr.com/post/172626757798/a-sticky-situation)
> 
> Tumblr: [catrinasl](http://catrinasl.tumblr.com)
> 
> Twitter: [@Catrina_SL](http://twitter.com/Catrina_SL)


End file.
